User experience is now the biggest factor that affects the growth of your business. If your customers aren't satisfied, they will go elsewhere. Instead of listing what is important for good user experience, we're going to focus on what contributes to bad user experience. This is because making any of these mistakes negates many if not all of the other design elements on a website. Here are 5 classic elements of bad user experience.
Getting In Your Customer’s Way
They can take the form of popups, banners, or endless ads on your page. Every click the customers have to make to get to the content or product information they want is a strike against your company. Never put a second ad up in place of the one they just closed.
Another variation of this is anything that interferes with the checkout process. For example, some sites try to force you to register with the company before you can check-out. Inconveniences like this have a direct impact on customer conversions and sales.
The solution is to approach your eCommerce site like a customer. However, sometime is hard to do so when you know your website by heart. Here is when a team of experts can be very helpful. A company that comes highly recommend is Cake Commerce. They can help you come up with an overarching vision and redesign your website so that it is a straightforward, intuitive experience. As well as help you build a high-level eCommerce user experience strategy that will shape new content creation to future website updates.
A Cluttered Website
A cluttered website will alternately confuse and frustrate your customer. Don't put too much stuff on your website. Skip the animated GIFs and other distractions. Leave off the auto-play video. Simply give users the option to start the video. Use a few relevant images instead of a wall of photos. In most cases, it will help to remove stock photos. If someone has seen the stock photo on several other websites, it will hurt their perception of your business.
Difficult to Navigate Websites
Make navigation as simple as possible. For example, you should have a simple direct flow from A to B, whether they're buying a product or signing up for a newsletter. However, visitors may not see what they're looking for at first glance. This is why you should include common navigation elements, such as on-site search. Put important functions like logging into the site or contacting support in an obvious location near the top of the page. Don't forget to have a clear call to action button on the page, even if it is a buy button on an eCommerce product page.
Unreadable Text
This is a surprisingly common problem. It can happen because the text is too small or too big. Or it may occur because the text color is too similar to the background color. You can also run into problems when using graphics for text.
A Lack of Engagement
Many firms focus on selling themselves or their products to website visitors. They don't engage in dialogue, even though modern consumers expect it. One way you can increase engagement is by integrating social media plugins into your website. This allows people to share the eCommerce page on social media or post social comments.
A related mistake is leaving off contact information. If you're selling a product or service, customers expect to see your contact information. If there is no phone number, address, or email on the website, the customer will not trust you enough to buy from you.
Removing bad elements that hurt the customer experience will have a direct impact on your bottom line. It is also the first step to creating a great eCommerce website.
Isabella has strong experience writing for publications across the business and marketing spaces. Her content is based on the latest ideas and theories from across the business landscape, meaning that she can give you a truly insightful and up to date view of your business and how it can adapt in order to thrive.
